Synopses & Reviews
This collection of essays examines how modern public spheres reflect and mask--often simultaneously--discourses of order, contests for hegemony, and techniques of power in the Muslim world. It builds on scholarship that re-imagines theories and practices of the public in modern and contemporary societies. While examining disparate time periods and locations, each contributor views modern and contemporary public spheres as crucial to the functioning, and understanding, of political and societal power in Muslim majority countries.
Review
"Fresh and insightful, this provocative and original collection of essays explores ideas of the public, public reason, and civic virtue as they are being reshaped through increasingly open debate and practice in law, the media, religious expression, and women's movements in Muslim majority societies. In scope and approach, this volume is good to think with." --Dale F. Eickelman, coauthor, with James Piscatori, of
Muslim Politics (new edition, 2004).
"This edited collection of essays is highly informative and often insightful in its assessment of the applicability of the concept of "the public sphere" to a variety of contexts in the Middle East. Most interesting and thought-provoking are the joint pieces by the editors Mark Levine and Armando Salvatore in which they draw on little-known writings by Gramsci and Foucault to re-examine the religious movements in the contemporary Muslim world. A very valuable contribution to understanding developments in that region."
-- Talal Asad, Graduate Center, City University of New York
About the Author
Armando Salvatore is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, Humboldt University, Berlin.
Mark LeVine is Associate Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, Culture and Islamic Studies at the University of California, Irvine.
Table of Contents
Part One: Contested Hegemonies in the Public Sphere * Socio-Religious Movements and the Transformation of 'Common Sense' Into a Politics of 'Common Good'--Salvatore/LeVine * Power, Religion, and the Effects of Publicness in Twentieth Century Shiraz--Setrag Manoukian * "Doing Good, Like Sayyida Zaynab": Lebanese Shi-i Women's Participation in the Public Sphere--Lara Deeb * "Building the World" in a Global Age--Raymond Baker *
Part Two: Practice, Communication, and the Public Construction of Legal Argument * Constructing the Private/Public Distinction in Muslim-Majority Societies: A Praxiological Approach--Baudouin Dupret and Jean-Noël Ferrié * Communicative Action and the Social Construction of Shari'a in Contemporary Pakistan--Muhammad Khalid Masud * Is There An Arab Public Sphere? The Palestinian Intifada, a Saudi Fatwa, and the Egyptian Press--Dyala Hamzah * Cover Stories: A Genealogy of the Legal-Public Sphere in Yemen--Brinkley Messick * Public Spheres Transnationalized: Comparisons Within and Beyond Muslim Majority Societies--Cecelia Lynch